


your darkness so dear

by Probably_Not_Captain_America



Category: Star Wars - All Media Types, Star Wars Legends - All Media Types, Star Wars Legends: Knights of the Old Republic (Video Games)
Genre: Angst, Dark Side Revan - Freeform, Established Relationship, F/F, Fluff, Hurt/Comfort, Power Dynamics, dark side au, sith power couple
Language: English
Status: Completed
Published: 2019-10-14
Updated: 2019-10-14
Packaged: 2020-12-16 11:49:39
Rating: Teen And Up Audiences
Warnings: No Archive Warnings Apply
Chapters: 1
Words: 1,754
Publisher: archiveofourown.org
Story URL: https://archiveofourown.org/works/21035768
Author URL: https://archiveofourown.org/users/Probably_Not_Captain_America/pseuds/Probably_Not_Captain_America
Summary: The noise persists; it’s a strange, choked-off sound, tight and desperate,scared, and belatedly, Bastila realizes it’s sobbing. But she’s not crying, and it couldn’t possibly –The silk sheets give the softest of rustles as she turns to the woman laying on the bed to her right.Oh Force.It’s Revan. The frightened sobbing is actually coming fromRevan.---Revan refuses to sleep in Bastila's presence, even after they've taken over the galaxy together. Bastila never quite understood why - until now.





	your darkness so dear

**Author's Note:**

> Dark Side AU! Revan's name is Halina Jerre, she has the "very short brown hair" character model and usually wears a red visor to cover her yellow dark side eyes. She remembers being Revan from the beginning of the game and proceeds to simply fuck with everyone's minds by pretending she doesn't, but still being a total Sith at every opportunity. She's a tactical genius with incredible charisma, very charming and very dangerous, and Bastila pretty much immediately falls for her.  
This is set on Korriban, some time after the Dark Side ending, with Revan and Bastila ruling over the galaxy as the Empress and her Guard Dog.  
The number one song for this pairing: Glory and Gore by Lorde

Bastila awakens by a sound she’s never heard before.

It must be the middle of the night; it’s hard to tell here on Korriban, where the moons shine almost as brightly as the sun. The dim light that streams through the temple’s high, narrow windows is pale, a sickly off-white instead of the usual burnt red, which means it must be nighttime.

She blinks her eyes, still heavy with sleep. Being sleepy is a luxury she only allows herself here, in her Master’s Grand Temple, where the thick walls and countless security measures allow Revan a brief moment of peace, enough to drift off to sleep. Anywhere else, this moment of grogginess could have been her last. Discarding the last remnants of fatigue, Bastila sits up and scans the room before her for possible intruders, even as she knows that anyone daring to enter here would be long dead by Revan’s hand now.

The bedroom is dark, lit only by the streaks of light filtering in through the windows, leaving the corners shaded and ominous. There’s no one there. Bastila feels no alien presence, neither in the Force nor with her other senses.

But the noise persists; it’s a strange, choked-off sound, tight and desperate, _scared_, and belatedly, Bastila realizes it’s sobbing. But she’s not crying, and it couldn’t possibly –

The silk sheets give the softest of rustles as she turns to the woman laying on the bed to her right.

_Oh Force._

It’s Revan. The frightened sobbing is actually coming from _Revan_.

Her lithe frame is curled in on itself, her back to Bastila, wound-up and looking smaller than Bastila has ever seen her Master. The covers are pooled around her hips, leaving her top half naked and shivering, whether from cold or the crying, Bastila doesn’t know.

She’s covered in a thin sheen of cold sweat, her skin glistening even in the low light, starkly highlighting every scar across her slim back.

“…Revan?” Bastila whispers the name into the darkness, as softly as she can, not knowing what else to do or say. In response, or perhaps on her own, Revan’s breath audibly hitches on a sob, and Bastila feels a sting of pain that goes right down to her heart.

This is Revan, Empress of the Galaxy, Dark Lord of the Sith, the Revanchist, _scared_ and _crying in her sleep._ What is she to do?

Revan had refused to sleep in one bed with Bastila for the longest time, always leaving her apprentice to wake up to an empty bed in the morning. This was only the second time she’d ever stayed the night, and Bastila suspects it was less a conscious decision and more the exhaustion taking its toll on her Master.

Now Bastila is coming to realize Revan’s hesitance may not have been born from aloofness, but rather a desire to keep this obvious weakness to herself. If Bastila didn’t know better, she’d be hurt; but she _does_ know better, knows how her Master can’t afford to show even the tiniest slip in her impenetrable defenses, not even to Bastila, her apprentice, her second-in-command – her lover.

Now Bastila can feel it, too, allowing the Force to move through her freely as she’s instantly hit by a wave of pure emotion. She sucks in a sharp breath at the intensity of it. Like a black hole, every kind of negativity she can imagine is curled up into a tight vortex, with Revan at its center, still shivering, right next to her but so far out of reach that Bastila feels despair clench tightly in her chest.

She hates it, hates seeing her Master, the strong, infallible, invincible Revan, coming apart at the seams like this, with her unable to do anything but watch. She can feel Revan’s anguish over their mutual bond, lurking at the edge of her consciousness like a deadly predator, threatening to consume her, growing with each passing second.

Bastila swallows. She convinces herself she’s not shaking as she reaches out her hand, opens her mouth to say something –

-but the words get lost, disappearing into the ether as a soundless gasp as the world turns into a flurry of motion for all of a heartbeat. When it settles, Bastila is on her back, Revan’s hands painfully digging into her throat, Revan’s weight bearing down on her in a way that reads as a borderline death threat.

Bastila is stunned as she looks up into her Master’s bright acid yellow eyes, deadly glowing pinpoints in the relative darkness of the room. She’s breathing heavily, her expression twisted in an angry snarl, and Bastila knows that, were she anyone else, this would have been the last thing she ever saw in her life.

A beat passes, the only sound that of Revan’s breath.

Another.

Careful to keep very still, Bastila meets Revan’s glare unfalteringly, despite the growing threat of running out of oxygen.

Another, and now, finally, the glow of Revan’s pupils dims by just the tiniest amount, and her hands on Bastila’s throat loosen their death grip by a fraction. It’s enough, and Bastila sucks in a desperate breath. But she doesn’t look away, not even now, somehow afraid that it will send Revan running.

Neither of them says anything for another long moment, the silence stretching taut between them. The snarl on Revan’s face has given way to an expression Bastila can’t quite decipher.

It’s Bastila who breaks the silence.

“Halina.”

It’s just a single word, but the meaning it carries is enormous. Only Bastila may call Revan by her real name these days, and even now, the weight of it on Bastila’s tongue is nearly physical. It almost, _almost_ makes Revan flinch when Bastila says it. It seems to be enough to convince her that Bastila is no threat, and her grip loosens another fraction, but she doesn’t completely relinquish her hold just yet.

“Halina, it’s me. Bastila.”

No response. The enigma in her eyes just grows deeper. Finally, after what seems like an eternity, she slowly lets go of Bastila’s neck, leaning back and letting her hands fall to her side.

“I know that.”

Revan’s words sound hollow, meaningless, and her eyes seem to look beyond Bastila, into a void that perhaps only she can see. She sits back on her heels, still bracketing Bastila’s legs, and looks away.

It _hurts_. It hurts Bastila to see Revan like this, looking so small and broken. She shifts back, leans up on her elbows and pushes a strand of stray hair out of her own face, but Revan doesn’t look at her.

Bastila lifts a hand, and slowly, careful to give Revan time to stop her if she wanted to, she lifts it to her Master’s face, softly stroking her cheek. She’s both cold and warm, like she always is, cold from the Dark Side but burning inside with a fire that not even all the ice on Hoth could put out. It’s one of the many things Bastila loves about Revan.

Gleaming yellow eyes dart back to Bastila; they’re always yellow these days, and Bastila wonders sometimes if she will ever see Revan’s natural eye color again. The glow diminishes further, now barely enough to illuminate Revan’s face, the thin veins crisscrossing her lids and cheeks, evidence of a life in devotion to the Dark Side.

Bastila loves Revan. She loves all of her, with every fiber of her soul, and in this moment, she wants nothing more than to help her, to hold her close until the vortex of fear around her disperses.

“What did you hear?”

Revan’s voice is bleak, flat, like she’s talking about the most mundane and boring thing she can think of, but echoing with an emptiness that sounds too familiar to be new. This is a regular occurrence, then, Bastila realizes, which somehow makes it even worse. The idea of Revan sobbing in her sleep, alone and cold, is enough to drive a fresh spike of pain into Bastila’s chest. She thinks carefully about her next words.

“Nothing. Unless you want to talk about it.”

Revan looks at her for a long moment, the empty, shuttered expression remaining on her face. Then she lets herself drop to the side, off of Bastila, rolling and turning her back to her apprentice without a word.

Bastila expected this response, but the rejection still stings. She can’t, she _won’t_ let Revan just pretend this away. Looking at the ceiling, she whispers into the darkness:

“…let me help you.”

There’s no response; but not a “no” either, so Bastila rolls onto her side, facing Revan’s slender form before her. She shifts closer, and carefully lays an arm around Revan’s shoulder, drawing her close, holding her.

Revan stiffens for a moment, and Bastila is almost ready for another attack, perhaps less merciful than last time, but then Revan slowly exhales and relaxes against her apprentice.

Bastila draws her a little closer and presses a butterfly-light kiss to Revan’s cold skin before resting her face in the crook of Revan’s shoulder.

Revan draws a shaky breath, with a broken sound that’s so close to an actual _whimper_ that Bastila doesn’t allow herself to dwell on it for too long. Revan leans into the embrace, curling up in Bastila’s arms; her naked body, for all its raw strength, seeming so thin and frail before Bastila all of a sudden.

Bastila holds her like this, the Apprentice covering the Master, until she feels certain that Revan has drifted back to sleep; only then does she allow fatigue to overcome her as well, and she falls asleep still holding Revan tightly.

-

The next time she wakes up, Bastila absolutely expects to be alone. But Revan is still exactly where she left her; sleeping in Bastila’s arms, breathing even and relaxed; almost peaceful, Bastila thinks.

Korriban’s red sun is already shining through the windows, well past its rise, but the last thing Bastila wants in this moment is to disturb her Master’s rest. She knows Revan needs every second of sleep she can get; all the more, now that Bastila knows how troubled her nights seem to be.

But right now, Revan looks content, and all Bastila wants is for this moment to last forever – holding Revan like this, with no war to wage, no battles to win, no worlds to conquer; just the woman she loves, sleeping in her arms.

Softly nuzzling her face in Revan’s messy hair, Bastila decides that duty can wait a while longer today.

**Author's Note:**

> hey:> thanks for reading!! I love these two so so much. I'm seriously considering turning a full kotor playthrough with this DS au spin into a novel-length fic, and then just keEP GOING. Happy sith galaxy ruling au. yes please. anyway, as always, point out mistakes, and comments make me happy!  
also, i feel like the title is a line from a popular song, but i can't for the life of me remember anything else about it, and i'm not even sure they would be the correct lyrics for that line. it's just what i always hear. hm.  
edit: i figured it out...it was "happy now" by zedd. and it turns out that the lyrics i kept hearing as "and only you know the strength of your tears/awash in the waves of your darkness so dear" ACTUALLY were "and only you know the strength of your teeth/the wash in the weights of your pockets, so deep". ouch. talk about disappointment...


End file.
